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What, exactly, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? During another Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear prerogative of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted additional of that power for his administration, conducting strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the presidency, with the administration asserting the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and seeking to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, either; virtually all bills must now be crammed into spending packages, massive perennial essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these don’t pass – and more and more, they do not – the government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration shut down – and it’s not clear how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the issue of control of Congress can appear somewhat moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has largely abolished itself?

How ‘screw Trump’ messaging may help California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a special election next month, has seized the attention of liberals across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to trends happening elsewhere: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State draw their maps via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California proposal is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that was recently approved in Texas, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an five more seats in the state House representation next year; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to be approved, as progressive electorate respond with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to restrain his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some critics caution that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to design their districts so as to foreclose any chance of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of opposing views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, argument and convincing that is supposed to define a functioning democratic process will be limited only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial critique, that the measure will provoke the right to redraw their own maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has required no any incentive of revenge to redraw maps that secure permanent seats for themselves: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to confront the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a sort of sad desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is not good that votes are made noncompetitive. That these measures have become essential in order to impede the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and reduce the amount of suffering he is capable to cause is sad; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have legislative, war making or appropriations power, what is it, precisely, that Prop 50’s five new blue house members will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that the House and Senate continues to holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In the coming years, if Prop 50 passes and California’s additional Democrats are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the power to investigate Trump, to televise their hearings into his conduct and to force associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer